Today, Northeastern University will hold the 40th annual Cooperative Education Awards ceremony. The event honors outstanding seniors who have excelled in Northeastern’s signature program, which exemplifies the University’s leadership in experiential learning.

One of the students being recognized is Danielle Moore, a dual major in human services and international affairs and Presidential Global Scholar. Last year, Moore worked for the Harpswell Foundation in Cambodia, where she helped empower young women from rural areas who are attending universities in the capital city through English language classes, leadership training and current-event discussions.

]]>http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/coopvideo/feed/0Crime and the college athletehttp://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/benedict/
http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/benedict/#commentsThu, 31 Mar 2011 22:25:42 +0000Journalist and alumnus Jeff Benedict discusses the issues raised by his Sports Illustrated story about criminal behavior in the ranks of the nation's elite college football players]]>

Investigative journalist Jeff Benedict, MA’95, who’s penned four books on athletes and crime, recently co-wrote a 3,100-word exposé for Sports Illustrated in which he uncovered the criminal records of the nation’s elite college football players. We asked Benedict, who served as director of research for Northeastern’s Sport in Society center, to assess the revelatory report, which found that seven percent of players on teams in the magazine’s 2010 preseason Top 25 had been charged with or cited for a crime.

Why are so many college football coaches and athletics directors unaware of their players’ criminal records?

Almost all programs do what I would consider ‘cursory looks’ at criminal histories. There are a couple of reasons. One is because many coaches don’t really want to know the nitty-gritty details. I also think there are some coaches in programs who aren’t necessarily aware of how easy it is to do criminal background checks. Finally, there is institutional pressure not to dig too deep, in order to get the best players. It could be seen as a disadvantage for a particular school if a player knows which programs do and don’t dig into his history and then gravitates toward schools that are less careful.

Why are so many of the crimes committed by athletes violent crimes against women, and how do they routinely escape accountability for their offenses?

Sex crimes against women are a direct outgrowth of the lifestyle these players lead. I’ve looked at hundreds of cases and so often the circumstances involve allegations of abuse. The problem arises when a player, who is accustomed to getting what he wants when he wants, encounters a women who says ‘no.’ Athletes aren’t used to putting on the breaks.

There are a few reasons why players escape severe penalties. From the start, even college athletes who have no money often end up with the best lawyer in town with help from alumni or boosters. Pro athletes spend and spend and spend and hire lawyers who in turn bring in media relations firms and private investigators.

Police and prosecutors are particularly hard on athletes, but there is a huge drop off between arrest and conviction rates. That’s because athletes often enjoy a great reputation among jurors, especially if the accuser is portrayed as someone out to get money from the player.

What steps can institutions take to clean up their athletics programs?

A university should require criminal background checks on college athletes being recruited for scholarships. If a university has no idea of a recruit’s history of violent crimes as a young adult, and he rapes a woman or severely beats a man on campus, that student can turn around and sue the school for negligence.

If a background check finds that a player has a criminal record, there should be an impartial review of the athlete by an administrator at the school. Whether or not a recruit gets a break should not depend on the sole discretion of the coach.

This does not mean that every player found to have a criminal record would be denied a scholarship. On the contrary, it means that these situations would be vetted more carefully and everyone, including the player, would be made aware that the scholarship holder must abide by the rules of the community.

]]>http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/benedict/feed/03Qs: The human costs of high food priceshttp://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/food/
http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/food/#commentsWed, 30 Mar 2011 23:32:26 +0000A new study by the World Bank found that food prices have increased 30 percent over the last year, driving some 44 million people into extreme poverty since June. Grigorios Livanis, assistant professor of international business and strategy at Northeastern University, assesses the problem.]]>

A new study by the World Bank found that food prices have increased 30 percent over the last year, driving some 44 million people into extreme poverty since June. Grigorios Livanis, assistant professor of international business and strategy at Northeastern University, assesses the problem.

Why are food prices increasing?

I believe the majority of the food price increases can be explained by market fundamentals (e.g., supply and demand factors) and agricultural policies in the U.S.

The growing use of corn in the production of ethanol increases the demand for and thus the cost of corn. Increased corn prices influence the cost of livestock because corn is central to the production of meat and poultry.

In addition to the rising cost of corn, the price of all inputs used in the production of food are about 17 percent higher in 2010 than in 2007. A major component of this increase is higher fuel prices.

The increased costs of corn and fuel combined with population growth, higher income per capita around the globe, and strong demand for food products — especially for meat products in emerging economies — help to explain the rise in food prices.

Some experts say that rampant price speculation on food by Wall Street investment bankers has led to the dramatic increase in prices for wheat, corn and sugar in countries such as Egypt, Morocco and Pakistan. What role has U.S. policy played in the crisis?

While commodities speculation may affect price volatility in the short run, I think that there are “fundamental” or “agricultural policy” reasons for the increased prices, such as the emergence of ethanol. For instance, studies found that 30 percent of the rising food prices in 2007 were due to increased demand for biofuel, while about 67 percent could be attributed to a rising standard of living around the world.

In contrast to the U.S. situation, producers in developing and emerging countries did not seize the opportunity from the increased food prices to raise production. This was attributed mainly to weak institutions and available technology, limited access to affordable inputs, such as fuel and fertilizer, and trade barriers, such as tariff reductions.

Why haven’t U.S. consumers been significantly affected?

Given the affluence of the U.S. consumer, the share of total expenditures on food is relatively small, less than 10 percent. As a result, U.S. consumers are less dramatically affected by large price swings, whereas countries like Egypt, Morocco, and Pakistan have been more dramatically affected because food represents a larger share of their budget. However, economic recessions, especially in conjunction with rising food prices, may change how food is consumed. In developed countries, people will tend to eat more meals at home and less at restaurants. In developing countries recessions might lead to decreased food consumption. If we are looking for a tangible impact of rising food prices on U.S. consumers, a recent report predicts that grocery costs could rise by more than 4 percent in 2011.

]]>http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/food/feed/03Qs: NFL season likely—after a season of litigationhttp://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/football/
http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/football/#commentsWed, 30 Mar 2011 23:29:41 +0000NFL owners and players failed to reach a new labor deal earlier this month. As a result, the NFL lockout is on, and now the matter is headed to court. Law professor Roger Abrams assesses the legal process and weighs in on the prospects for saving the 2011 NFL season.]]>

National Football League owners and players failed to reach a new labor deal earlier this month, with both sides at odds over divvying up the league’s $9 billion in revenue. As a result, the NFL lockout is on, and now the matter is headed to court. Roger Abrams, the Richardson Professor of Law at Northeastern’s School of Law — who has taught sports law for 25 years — assesses the legal process ahead and weighs in on the prospects for saving the 2011 NFL season.

What’s the next step in the legal process?

The NFL players’ union has decertified, and the players are seeking an injunction in federal court against the owners. (A hearing has been set for April 6.) They’re saying that, without a union, the owners can’t collectively decide to boycott a group of employees. That’s what a lockout is in anti-trust terms: a boycott. It could be weeks until the owners learn whether their lockout will stand. If it stands, they may wait to see how long their employees can withstand the lockout. If it doesn’t stand and is enjoined as a violation of anti-trust laws — which in my estimation it is — I think the parties go back to table, and the players will be in much better shape. But there is a problem: How can the players go back to the table if they’re no longer a union?

The second thing going on, with less visibility, is that the NFL has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board, claiming the players’ union is not bargaining in good faith. The labor board generally takes its time dealing with those charges.

Is this an unprecedented situation?

Both sides are swimming in uncharted waters. Earlier this month, management moved substantially off their prior positions, but they had already poisoned the atmosphere by originally demanding an extra $1 billion off the top. It was going to be very tough to reach an agreement.

The last time the union decertified, in 1989, it ultimately led to a new deal that included free agency, which was hard to achieve through bargaining. This time around they’ve identified the issues, which mainly revolve around money, and they are not matters of principle.

What will be the lasting impact of this situation?

I expect the legal issues will work their way through the process, and ultimately there will be a deal. I don’t think we will miss any football this year. This set of negotiations will also determine how the NFL and the players’ association interact for the next 20 years.

I’m not worried about the long-term impact on football because the sport is too good a product and too good for the viewer. This situation may, however, set the pattern for what could happen in the sport of basketball, where the chances for a lockout this off-season are even greater.

The popularity of eBooks is soaring. Amazon.com reported selling more eBooks than hardcover books last year, and one market research firm, Forrester Research, has predicted that overall eBook sales in the United States will hit $1 billion this year.

This trend is also increasingly extending into academia, with more students looking for electronic resources to help them study for exams, conduct research or simply learn more about interesting topics, said Amira Aaron, University Libraries’ associate dean of scholarly resources.

Recognizing this demand, the Northeastern University Libraries has substantially expanded its eBook scholarly resource offerings in the past year. With the recent subscription to the ebrary Academic Complete collection, the library is now providing access to more than 52,000 additional eBook titles. Aaron said the effort is part of a huge transformation to eBooks across many disciplines, and the ongoing eBook additions provide numerous benefits to the Northeastern community.

“We are now able to offer 24/7 access to these books from multiple locations for multiple users,” Aaron said. “With growing numbers of distance education and online classes, many students no longer come to campus on a regular basis, so electronic books and journals are critical to support teaching and research.”

Users can try out the new collection of eBooks by going directly to the ebrary site, or finding individual titles through NuCat from the library website. All of the library’s e-books are listed individually in NuCat.

Aaron is also hoping that scholarly eBook publishers will soon be providing more content that is downloadable directly to devices such as Kindles and Nooks.

Last year, University Libraries announced the availability of the 2010 full collection of eBooks from Springer Publishing, one of the top international publishers of scientific, technical and medical titles. The set also includes 2005–2009 volumes from the Computer Collection, including the prestigious Lecture Notes in Computer Science series.

According to a recent survey conducted by AVG Technologies, a global consumer security software provider, and the Ponemon Institute, an independent research group, many smart phone users are complacent about the security risks that exist from using these mobile devices. Computer science professor Guevara Noubir, an expert in wireless security, analyzes this finding and assesses the potential risks that stem from using smart phones.

Do you agree that Americans are lax in their mobile phone security?

My feeling is that a portion of the population is lax, not everyone. People might download hundreds of applications to iPhones or Android phones, and I think some people aren’t careful enough about it. But the risks will keep increasing as phones become more ubiquitous and more sophisticated applications emerge, and because phones are with us all the time and we tend to trust them.

What are the greatest risks for cell phone users when it comes to security threats?

One potential threat relates to the fact that people carry mobile phones with them all the time, so their location can be tracked. Some applications people use, such as apps that enable them to access their bank accounts, could be damaging if that information is compromised.

These threats are related to many other aspects, including the fact that some of the protocols behind Wi-Fi and connectivity still have security issues. Others are related to the specific user. Many apps will ask you to accept its terms, which could include sharing the user’s location. Many people don’t read these terms and just click, “Yes.”

A couple of weeks ago, several applications were taken off the Android market because they included malware — meaning someone repackaged them to include harmful software that reports user information.

Has mobile phone security software kept pace with the cell phone technology, and how do you see this trend continuing in the future?

I think smart phone security is still just emerging, because cell phone technology has evolved so quickly over the last few years. Manufacturers put security mechanisms in their systems that are quite good, but beyond that, many threats haven’t been realized yet. We haven’t heard about a really large number of people being compromised, so if and when that happens, we’ll see more work done to solve these problems. I think most people now are ignoring it because there is no imminent threat. It’s hard to predict future threats, but overall, I feel if people are careful about what applications they install, their threat level is reasonable.

“When we talked to the girls about cyberbullying on Facebook, it was like an explosion. They all knew someone who’d been bullied that way.”

So reported senior communication studies major Hannah McCulloch, who, with junior Brittany Troy, led an antibullying training session for Boston teenagers last semester.

McCulloch and Troy developed the two-hour program themselves, as a project for their capstone course, “Organizational Communication Training and Development,” taught by associate communication studies professor and associate vice provost Elise Dallimore.

By the end of the semester, the program had had its real-world debut in a class of teen girls, courtesy of the Boston nonprofit Health Resources in Action (HRIA).

HRIA invites girls who act as peer leaders at such Boston organizations as Sociedad Latina, the South Street Housing Development and the Hyde Park YMCA to weekly sessions on a variety of public health issues. Afterward, the teens are asked to share what they’ve learned within their communities and their schools.

To create an antibullying program for these girls, McCulloch and Troy immersed themselves in gaining the necessary theoretical background and practical skills. Then they developed a needs assessment and a training contract for HRIA, designed the curriculum, piloted it in Dallimore’s class to get feedback, delivered it to the HRIA teens and, ultimately, evaluated its effectiveness.

“Hannah and I spent endless hours in the library brainstorming and doing research,” said Troy.

Dallimore’s capstone, McCulloch said, “was a really intense class, one of the most rewarding I’ve taken at Northeastern.

“We would learn something on a Tuesday, take it to our clients on a Thursday, then go back to class on Friday and talk about what the clients had said,” McCulloch continued. “By the end, we understood how to train, and what impact our training had on people.”

Best of all, McCulloch and Troy feel they helped shed some light on the hot-button issue of bullying — especially cyberbullying.

Troy said the teens she talked with didn’t fully understand the relationship between cyberbullying and suicide.

“They were shocked when we showed them an article about Phoebe Prince,” she said, referring to the South Hadley, Massachusetts, 15-year-old who killed herself last year after allegedly being bullied by classmates.

McCulloch and Troy advised the teens on how they could address cyberbullying without becoming victims themselves — such as by anonymously reporting abusive remarks to Facebook. “The girls were really receptive to that approach,” said McCulloch.

HRIA is one of more than 225 programs that partner with Northeastern through the Center of Community Service to enlist students’ help.

Laurie Jo Wallace, the HRIA training director, praised what McCulloch and Troy accomplished. “They were very responsible, very focused and created a great two-hour curriculum we will definitely use in the future,” Wallace said.

In fact, said Dallimore, “Health Resources in Action was so impressed they’re planning to market this training to organizations all over the country.”

]]>http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/antibullying/feed/0The character of great arthttp://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/fivecharacters/
http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/fivecharacters/#commentsTue, 29 Mar 2011 19:19:18 +0000Kimberly Juanita Brown, assistant professor of English, discusses five characters who make their novels great works of art]]>

Kimberly Juanita Brown, assistant professor of English, discusses five characters who make their novels great works of art.

Sula Peace. In “Sula,” by Toni Morrison. In one of my favorite passages, Sula — both a protagonist and an antagonist — drifts back home after having been away for more than a decade. Visiting her childhood friend Nel, Sula casually laments her inability to find a suitor. “They still here. You the one went off,” Nel tells her, to which Sula dreamily responds, “Didn’t I though?” Steam truck or dove feather, Sula is a self-constructed manifestation of her own desires.

Baby Kochamma. In “The God of Small Things,” by Arundhati Roy. Baby Kochamma is one of the novel’s principal villains, a woman bereft of love. She is selfish and manipulative, angry and afraid, caste conscious and locked in time. Roy gives us a look at how loss affects a family through this character, who plays puppeteer with everyone around her, and yet is both tangential to the family and forgotten in the narrative.

Jason Compson. In “The Sound and the Fury,” by William Faulkner. Faulkner once said that Jason is the only member of the Compson family who is not insane. This is, of course, not entirely true. Jason’s mental disorder has a very rigid and orderly cadence to it. Everything Jason says about others is true of himself, and, like Satan in “Paradise Lost,” he gets all the best lines.

Juletane. In “Juletane,” by Myriam Warner-Vieyra. Now out of print, “Juletane” is a sumptuous novella spanning three countries through one short life. Moving from Paris to Africa, Juletane quickly discovers that she is not her husband’s only wife, and everything she thought he represented is a lie. Helene, a social worker, reads Juletane’s notebook after her death, and realizes — as we do — that she is unforgettable.

Silla Boyce. In “Brown Girl, Brownstones,” by Paule Marshall. Ambitious, artful and extremely hard-working, Silla cares about only one thing: buying a house. Although daughter Selina resists Silla’s holding fast to rigid Barbadian values, ultimately Selina is forced to reconcile with Silla’s ways — recognizing them as her own ways as well.

Over the last four years, she and her boyfriend, now her fiancé, have savored ice cream, Italian beef and grilled bratwurst at mom and pop restaurants in some 45 states around the country. The self-described foodies chronicle their gastronomical adventures on Roadfood.com, a website and blog dedicated to featuring the tastiest eateries along the highways and back roads of North America.

“We started planning vacations around food,” says Briesch, an assistant professor of school psychology.

One summer, she visited 139 restaurants in 26 states and provinces in the northern United States and southern Canada. The salami curry in Toronto proved well worth the 10,000-mile journey in her Honda Civic Hybrid.

She would rather indulge in a Buffalo dog in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Jackson, Wyo., than eat anything at all in a chain joint like TGI Friday’s.

“It’s too easy to travel to any city in the country and sit down to dinner in a restaurant that looks exactly like the one you have at home,” says Briesch, who visited 24 out of 25 restaurants on the historic barbeque trail in North Carolina.

“When I travel to Kansas City to eat burnt ends (smoked brisket) or Nashville to eat hot chicken (spicy fried chicken), I’m looking to have a new culinary experience and better understand the local area.”

Sometimes the most enjoyable food is right under Briesch’s nose.

Over two weekends in the summer, she sampled more than 100 flavors of ice cream at 50 ice cream shops in New England. The maple ice cream with rolled oats — called the tree hugger at Tubby’s Ice Cream in Wayne, Maine — received the highest rating of five cones up on the blog.

She says the croissants at the Clear Flour Bakery, in Brookline, Mass., could win a bake-off against any flaky, golden competition.

For Briesch, writing about food is a welcome departure from writing about topics in school psychology.

“My academic writing is very cut and dry,” says Briesch, who majored in creative writing at Dartmouth College. “On the blog, I’m focused on the structure and sound of the sentences. That’s the fun part.”

]]>http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/foodblog/feed/03Qs: Technology and the power of soundhttp://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/sonic_persuasion/
http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/sonic_persuasion/#commentsTue, 29 Mar 2011 18:10:10 +0000In his new book, “Sonic Persuasion: Reading Sound in the Recorded Age,” Greg Goodale, assistant professor of communication studies, critically analyzes how a wide range of actual sounds — from U.S. presidents’ audio recordings to cartoon soundtracks — have been used as persuasive devices, often providing greater meaning to interpretations of identity, culture and history.
]]>

Words are often seen as powerful tools. But in his new book, “Sonic Persuasion: Reading Sound in the Recorded Age,” Greg Goodale, assistant professor of communication studies, critically analyzes how a wide range of actual sounds — from U.S. presidents’ audio recordings to cartoon soundtracks — have been used as persuasive devices, often providing greater meaning to interpretations of identity, culture and history.

]]>http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/sonic_persuasion/feed/0How has American identity changed?http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/buford/
http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/buford/#commentsTue, 29 Mar 2011 17:45:10 +0000Studies, such as sociology professor’s research on West African immigrants, indicate that Obama’s election did not signify a tectonic shift]]>

First-generation West African immigrants from Nigeria and Ghana transition smoothly into major societal institutions, such as the workplace and the neighborhood, but have not built stable, mutually beneficial friendships and intimate relationships with native-born Americans, said Northeastern University professor Mindelyn Buford II.

Speaking at an interdisciplinary conference, “American Identity in the Age of Obama,” held last week at Northeastern, the assistant professor of sociology and African-American studies noted that Nigerian and Ghanaian immigrants “exhibit patterns of selective acculturation.”

The conference, cosponsored by the Humanities Center and the John D. O’Bryant African-American Institute, drew scholars from across the country, who highlighted the role of race, ethnicity and immigration status in shaping conceptions of what it means to be American.

“There’s not an easy answer to what aspects of American identity have or have not changed since Obama was elected,” said political science professor Amilcar Barreto, associate director of the Humanities Center. “It’s possible that any change is slow in terms of accepting members of traditionally marginalized groups in society.”

Buford analyzed the socioeconomic and interpersonal assimilation patterns of 45 Nigerian and Ghanaian immigrants who migrated to Maryland, many of whom sought better jobs and educational opportunities. She is conducting the research for a book on how class and race shape highly educated, foreign-born black immigrants’ assimilation trajectories in the United States.

According to Buford’s study, 73 percent of Nigerian and Ghanaian immigrants had African Americans in their social networks, including colleagues, neighbors, significant others and acquaintances in volunteer organizations. Forty-nine percent of those surveyed had white Americans in their social networks.

The majority of participants, Buford said, enjoyed their experiences in the workplace and in the neighborhood, but seldom developed close relationships with their co-workers or neighbors. More often than not, for example, Nigerian and Ghanaian immigrants developed formal work relationships that “did not tend to extend outside of the workplace and work hours.”

“Patterns of integration or isolation among these new immigrants have implications for their self-identity and imposed identification in contemporary U.S. society,” said Buford.

]]>http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/buford/feed/13Qs: Can you hear me now?http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/wireless_deal/
http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/wireless_deal/#commentsMon, 28 Mar 2011 22:04:28 +0000AT&T Inc. has proposed buying T-Mobile USA for $39 billion, a merger that would create the nation’s largest U.S. wireless carrier. What would this development mean for consumers and the industry? Fareena Sultan, a professor of marketing and the Robert Morrison Fellow in Northeastern University’s College of Business Administration, assesses the impact of the potential deal.]]>

AT&T Inc. has proposed buying T-Mobile USA for $39 billion, a merger that would create the nation’s largest U.S. wireless carrier. What would this development mean for consumers and the industry? Fareena Sultan, a professor of marketing and the Robert Morrison Fellow in Northeastern University’s College of Business Administration, assesses the impact of the potential deal.

]]>http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/wireless_deal/feed/0Business is just poppin’http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/minipops/
http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/minipops/#commentsMon, 28 Mar 2011 22:00:48 +0000A new gluten-free snack is appearing on store shelves across the country, and it’s another entrepreneurial success story at Northeastern]]>

Northeastern alumnus Reuben Taube, ’05, MBA’10, and his brother Ari have invented a new gluten-free snack that is well on the way to making a big national splash.

Mini Pops, made of air-popped sorghum grain, can be found on shelves in specialty foods stores and Whole Foods Markets throughout the country. And one of the keys to this success, say the two entrepreneurs, has been the support they’ve gotten from theInter-Disciplinary Entrepreneurship Accelerator (IDEA) program at Northeastern University.

The program, which helps students and alumni create, develop and accelerate their businesses through coaching, mentoring and gap funding, provided the brothers with consulting advice and $10,000.

The duo purchased an automated packaging machine with the money from IDEA. As Reuben, who created the business plan for Mini Pops in an entrepreneurship course, put it, “Now we can speed up the operation, approach larger distributors and keep up with demand.”

Equally valuable was the free advice, said Ari, who received tips on how to drive more traffic to Mini Pops’ website from a search engine optimization expert.

“When you’re starting a business, there are always so many questions,” Ari said. “Student-entrepreneurs or faculty members who have connections in the industry are there to give you objective answers.”

Reuben praised Northeastern’s entrepreneurship program for teaching him how to run a business. “I learned how to market and sell products, how to make financial projections and understand scaling and fixed costs,” he said.

The brothers plan to meet with potential investors after the second annual IDEA Investment Forum on campus on April 14. The company, Ari estimates, could be worth as much as $1 million in the next year. Faculty advisors and IDEA student leaders have high hopes for the tasty treat, which contains fewer calories, less fat and more protein than popcorn, and comes in varieties including baby white cheddar, little lemon pepper and itsy bitsy chili cheese.

“I’ve spent many decades working with entrepreneurs and I can tell you that these two guys have what it takes,” said senior academic specialist Dan Gregory, a faculty advisor for the venture accelerator program. “I’ve watched them build the operation and make a presentation for gap funding and I have a high degree of confidence that they can emerge and be successful.”

Michael Hans, chief executive officer of the program, agreed. “They obviously have a great idea,” said Hans, a third-year business major with a dual concentration in entrepreneurship and marketing.

“Because they’re really good at taking advice and running with it, they’ve been able to build a support network of people with expertise and leverage that in a positive way.”

Through engaging co-op experiences and rewarding community service projects, Northeastern student Cheyanne Freeman has found her calling in community pharmacy.

Freeman, a fourth-year student in the Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) program, worked at a Wal-Mart pharmacy in Somersworth, N.H., in summer 2009. There, she discovered the rewards of compounding —taking drug ingredients from scratch and putting them together to make medicine. But she also found counseling patients about their medications and addressing their questions incredibly fulfilling.

While at Northeastern, Freeman also volunteered at the Boston AIDS Walk last year and the Boston Diabetes Expo in 2009. She said seeing the impact that community outreach and patient education can have at those events solidified her interest in the community pharmacy track.

“I’m really interested in being involved in the community, both now and when I become a pharmacist,” Freeman said.

Earlier this month, Freeman received the Joseph H. Benjamin Scholarship Award at the annual Spring Scholarships and Awards Convocation, sponsored by the School of Pharmacy in the Bouvé College of Health Sciences. Dr. David Benjamin presented the award, founded in the name of his father, a 1931 Northeastern graduate and a community pharmacist. The award is presented to a student for academic achievement, and with an interest in compounding.

More than 40 students received awards at the convocation, which celebrates the school’s outstanding students and alumni. Stephen Zoloth, the college’s dean, hailed the students for their hard work, adding, “You shape us through your achievements, and we celebrate all of your accomplishments.”

Another student honored at the event was Colleen McQuinn, who received the Constantine and Mary Meriano Scholarship Award. The award was presented by Dr. John Merianos, nephew of Constantine Meriano — the founder and first dean of what came to be the School of Pharmacy.

McQuinn said her co-op experiences at various hospitals have prepared her well for the rotations she’s now completing in her sixth year of the PharmD program. She said seeing first-hand the importance of being precise and accurate with drugs and corresponding dosages has paid huge dividends now that she’s interacting more with patients.

Of her award, McQuinn was honored and grateful. “This has such deep roots in our school. I’m really touched to receive that award,” she said.

Doctoral student Tao Wang received the John L. Neumeyer Research Achievement Award, which is named for a former Matthews Distinguished Professor in Chemistry.

“This award means so much to me,” said Wang, who is studying the field of molecular recognition. “The purpose of this award is to encourage people to pursue their scientific dreams. It’s given me more encouragement to continue working hard.”

]]>http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/pharmacy_awards/feed/03Qs: The “grand dame” actress of her dayhttp://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/taylor/
http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/taylor/#commentsFri, 25 Mar 2011 22:15:23 +0000Creative industries director Terrence Masson, who has worked in computer graphics and visual effects for some 20 feature films, discusses Elizabeth Taylor’s impact on American movies and culture.]]>

Movie star Elizabeth Taylor, who died this week at age 79, was famous for her legendary beauty, her many marriages, her glamorous lifestyle, and, later in life, for her charitable work for HIV/AIDS. Her affair with actor Richard Burton — who she married twice — provided gossip column fodder for years. Her acting — for example, as Maggie in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (1958) and Martha in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” (1966) — could be sharp and arresting. She’s considered one of the biggest stars ever. Here, creative industries director Terrence Masson, who has worked in computer graphics and visual effects for some 20 feature films, discusses Elizabeth Taylor’s impact on American movies and culture.

]]>http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/taylor/feed/03Qs: Where does innovation come from? Often, the lunchroomhttp://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/gibson/
http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/gibson/#commentsThu, 24 Mar 2011 23:30:40 +0000J. Murray Gibson, the founding dean of Northeastern’s new College of Science, discusses his goals for research and teaching, and how Northeastern should be the best in the world in certain areas of science.]]>

J. Murray Gibson, the founding dean of Northeastern’s new College of Science, came to the university from Argonne National Laboratory, where, as the director of Advanced Photon Source, he was the intellectual driver for major initiatives such as the Center for Nanoscale Materials. Here, the dean discusses his goals for research and teaching, and how Northeastern should be the best in the world in certain areas of science.

]]>http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/gibson/feed/0Calling attention to neglected diseaseshttp://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/neglected_diseases/
http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/neglected_diseases/#commentsThu, 24 Mar 2011 23:23:17 +0000A professor and his team of chemistry students are committed to discovering cures for diseases that affect the world’s poor.]]>

Chemistry professor Michael Pollastri and his team of 12 post-doctoral, graduate and undergraduate students are combining their science skills and idealism to bring attention — and solutions — to diseases neglected by Big Pharma research.

Neglected tropical diseases, such as sleeping sickness and Chagas disease, affect the poorest parts of the world, where unsafe water, poor sanitation and limited access to basic health care are common. The diseases are typically transmitted by insects, and can result in debilitation or death.

Pollastri says these diseases are neglected by the pharmaceutical industry because they would not be able to recoup or profit from the billions of dollars spent on drug research and development.

“It is not necessarily that the problems of creating a drug for these neglected diseases are intrinsically more difficult, it’s that there hasn’t been a concerted effort from industry to do so,” said Pollastri, who specializes in medicinal chemistry and chemical technology.

Since receiving funding from the National Institutes of Health in the spring of 2009, Pollastri has focused on research that will expedite the drug-discovery process for neglected diseases. The effort supports Northeastern’s commitment to use-inspired research, with a focus on global challenges in health, security and sustainability.

“There are very few people working in this area, and I felt we could make a big impact,” he said.

Pollastri and his research team collaborate with leading experts from across the globe, including England, Spain, Switzerland and the United States, whose focus is on African trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, and other neglected diseases.

In his lab at Northeastern, he and his team repurpose existing small molecular compounds being used by big companies and modify them to try to inhibit the parasites associated with the diseases. They then ship them all over the world to be tested by their research collaborators.

After testing the molecules, the experts upload the data to a shared database, which provides Pollastri and his team with the information necessary for the next phase of development.

“This is how a drug company works. Except normally, chemists and biologists are in adjacent labs and ours are all over the world,” Pollastri said.

They quickly found that one compound, which is used by a leading pharmaceutical company for cancer treatment, was incredibly potent at killing parasites related to sleeping sickness in culture tests and in animals.

“This is not the norm,” Pollastri explained. “Drug discovery normally takes a very long time.”

Pollastri left a leading pharmaceutical company to pursue this research. He was attracted to Northeastern because he was impressed with the undergraduate students who complete co-ops in the industry. “When they come back to the lab, they know the language of industrial drug discovery, they know how to run experiments,” he said.

Said Murray Gibson, dean of the College of Science: “Thanks to innovative approaches to repurposing drug development, Mike hopes to leverage the massive economic engine that has led to blockbuster drugs and combat neglected diseases.”

Pollastri’s research was conducted through the Center for Drug Discovery at Northeastern, which is committed to finding novel medications and developing new approaches and technologies aimed at improving the discovery of new therapeutic drugs.

What I’m imagining — in the simplest sense — are plant structures. A little farfetched, I know. But it would be a building that would be able to regenerate after radiation damage from the sun or structural breaks from earthquakes. I’m going for bio-metallic buildings, which Wikipedia defines as a “living machine.” Earth is, fundamentally, a living machine.

Plant buildings? Where did you come up with that idea?

Working with professor (Carolyn) Lee-Parsons and professor (Albert) Sacco. In professor Lee-Parsons’s lab I was working with genetic mutations in plants, and it got me thinking: What if we could do that on a grander scale? Like for the materials used to construct buildings. Professor Sacco’s research in environmental remediation inspired me to think about how a structure built from organic materials might help clean the air inside a building.

Do you really think these ideas could work?

Well, no one’s figured out how yet — not that I know of. That’s why I’m applying to graduate schools with materials-science programs and active research on thin-film technologies. If I can understand how this stuff works, I’m sure I could elaborate on the technologies and incorporate it into bigger applications.

So do you envision yourself as some sort of mad architect creating living, breathing cities?

What I would really like to work on is creating materials for space and underwater exploration. There are a lot of problems that limit our ability to travel and live in these harsh environments — radiation, energy sustainability and storage, and access to food, air, and water. In an underwater facility, for example, I could see creating a thin biometal layer to prevent corrosion and radiation damage. I want to work on problems like these and try to solve them.

]]>http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/student/feed/0University recognized for programs that nurture diversityhttp://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/diversity_award/
http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/diversity_award/#commentsWed, 23 Mar 2011 23:17:46 +0000Having garnered the regional prize, Northeastern will compete for the national Commitment to Diversity award from national residence hall association.]]>

Northeastern University has won a regional award and is competing for national recognition for its commitment to diversity awareness and education on campus.

Earlier this month, the North East Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls recognized the university with its Commitment to Diversity Award. The region includes institutions throughout New England, New York and northeastern Canada.

The regional winners will next compete for the national Commitment to Diversity award from the National Association of College and University Residence Halls, a student-run organization that presents the award annually.

Northeastern’s bid for the award was organized by the Resident Student Association (RSA). Matt Hamilton, a third-year student and RSA’s national communications coordinator, said Northeastern’s events and resources promoting diversity help foster a sense of community within the residence halls, particularly since its students come from all over the world.

“When I got to Northeastern, I realized not only how diverse the world is, but also how diverse our college campus is,” Hamilton said.

The RSA noted the campus community’s diversity, and Northeastern’s commitment to being a global university.

International students make up more than 12 percent of the student body and students of color nearly 26 percent. Northeastern students hail from fifty states and 125 countries. The University builds on this diversity by focusing on programs that prepare students to become global citizens, such as international co-op and Dialogue of Civilizations. These experiential learning programs immerse students in global cultures in 69 countries on all seven continents.

The RSA’s bid also cited numerous diversity-related events, programs and student initiatives, such as Xplosaic, an annual festival of culture featuring dance, food and music; and NU Spiritual Wellness Week, which highlights the variety of spiritual beliefs on campus through dinners, prayer and film screenings.

Other programs include a variety of cultural retreats, spiritual programs, workshops, lectures community service events and student leadership activities. Many of these are organized through the University’s cultural centers, such as the Latino/a Student Cultural Center, the John D. O’Bryant African-American Institute and the Asian American Center.

The University also provides a wide range of resources for students on a range on diversity issues, through the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity, the Disability Resource Center, the International Student and Scholar Institute, the Social Justice Resource Center, UNITE (Unifying Northeastern’s Identities through Education) and Off-Campus Student Services.

A Delaware Chancery Court ruling last month upheld Airgas, Inc.’s right to employ its shareholders rights plan — a defense known as a “poison pill” — to block an unsolicited offer by Air Products. Don Margotta, associate professor offinance, discusses the resurgence of this corporate defense tactic. Margotta has served as an expert witness in numerous court cases involving both hostile takeovers and the legality of poison pill takeover defenses.

Northeastern’s own Ryan Maguire jump-started the Husky’s baseball season with an unforgettable leadoff home run in a spring-training game against the Red Sox. Journalism professor Charles Fountain, whose book, “Under the March Sun,” examines the spring training season, offers his insights on Maguire, spring training’s survival in the economy and the innocence it manages to maintain.

]]>http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/spring_training/feed/0Profile in leadership—and successhttp://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/filipek/
http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/filipek/#commentsTue, 22 Mar 2011 19:17:04 +0000Creating and managing a company-wide employee development program in Germany taught Northeastern University senior Stephanie Filipek how to become a leader in a room full of executives.]]>

Creating and managing a company-wide employee development program in Germany taught Northeastern University senior Stephanie Filipek how to become a leader in a room full of executives.

“I learned how to talk to anyone on any professional level,” said Filipek, abusiness major with a dual concentration in entrepreneurship and marketing. “I developed the confidence to facilitate conversations between managing directors and employees.”

Filipek created the employee development program for Bisnode Business Information Group on co-op last fall. The Darmstadt-based company helps clients in 17 countries in Europe maximize sales, minimize risks and make better business decisions.

Filipek developed the program by interviewing managing directors, creating workshops for employees and attending a conference for employees in Sweden.

The goal of the program, she said, is for employees to improve their management skills, build bonds between colleagues and pursue their educational goals through workshops and conferences.

As Filipek put it, “I wanted to create a road map for employees and figure out the best way to help them grow.”

She experienced a similar level of personal and professional growth during her experiential learning opportunity in Germany. The co-op, she said, taught her more about herself than about the corporate culture at Bisnode.

“I traveled across the world to build my own life for six months,” said Filipek, who also completed a semester abroad at CEFAM, an international business school in Lyon, France. “It’s amazing to discover and reinvent yourself.”

Filipek called her international learning experiences the “top two” highlights of her time at Northeastern. Honing her communication skills at Bisnode, she said, helped her land a job as an account assistant for the Boston-based advertising agency MMB after graduation in May.

“Clarity is of the upmost importance if you are speaking to an audience whose native language is not English,” Filipek said. “Acting as a project manager at Bisnode required me to become [more] organized and self-motivated,” she added.

While female perfection is often portrayed in the media as young, white and thin, body-image issues and eating disorders affect all ethnic groups, says a Northeastern psychologist.

“There are some eating disorders like anorexia nervosa, that are more likely to show themselves in white women, but women in all ethnic and racial groups show symptoms and signs of diagnosable clinical eating disorders,” said Debra Franko, a professor in the department of counseling and applied educational psychology in the Bouvé College of Health Sciences.

Franko has done more than 70 studies in this area. Most recently, she and Heather Thompson-Brenner from Boston University completed a study funded by the National Institutes of Health that examined African American, Hispanic and Caucasian people with binge eating disorders.

The team gathered a sample of nearly 1,500 people from previously completed clinical trials on binge eating and analyzed the raw data to identify attitudinal and behavioral trends related to ethnicity.

The researchers assessed participants’ concerns related to shape, weight, self-restraint and eating, as well as knowledge, attitudes and behaviors associated with binge eating disorders.

Although all ethnicities in the study exhibited similar binge eating problems, the findings show there may be cultural explanations, such as larger body ideals or different eating habits.

For example, Hispanic participants showed a higher concern for how their shape or the amount of food they eat influences how they think about or judge themselves.

“It would suggest that perhaps, we need to take cultural variables into account when we are designing treatments for people from diverse backgrounds,” Franko noted.

Recently, Franko and her team completed focus groups with Latina students at Northeastern and asked questions about how their family, friends, culture, and the media have shaped the way they perceive their body image.

Most of the women expressed a feeling of conflict between cultural values — where food and larger bodies are celebrated — and how those values are contradicted in the media, where images of women are thin and not curvy.

“This is a big battle,” said Franko. “We are saturated with these kinds of images and we have to continue to encourage women to see themselves in much broader terms than what they look like, despite what they see in the media. Women have to think about their strengths, personalities, talents, and be more critical of the media to not take these images as something they need to aspire to, but rather something they need to question.”

While media literacy is important, friends and family can play a critical role in shaping a young women’s body perception. “Peers really do matter,” she said. “Young women should surround themselves with people who are positive, who are not so caught up in body image.”

]]>http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/ethnicity_body_image/feed/03Qs: Catching the copierhttp://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/plagiarism/
http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/plagiarism/#commentsMon, 21 Mar 2011 19:10:50 +0000A well-respected German defense minister resigned recently after he admitted that parts of his 2006 doctoral thesis repeated passages by other authors without proper citation. These days, copying and pasting makes it easier than ever to plagiarize, especially in academia, where papers, projects and dissertations are written every day. Brenda Berkelaar, a professor of communication studies at Northeastern, clarifies what plagiarism is, how to prevent it, and how the short-term repercussions can have lasting effects.]]>

A well-respected German defense minister resigned recently after he admitted that parts of his 2006 doctoral thesis repeated passages by other authors without proper citation. These days, copying and pasting makes it easier than ever to plagiarize, especially in academia, where papers, projects and dissertations are written every day. Brenda Berkelaar, a professor of communication studies at Northeastern, clarifies what plagiarism is, how to prevent it, and how the short-term repercussions can have lasting effects.

]]>http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/plagiarism/feed/0Career fair for the socially mindedhttp://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/nucause/
http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2011/03/nucause/#commentsMon, 21 Mar 2011 19:07:30 +0000From caring for national parks to reforesting the jungles of Ecuador, students apply for social engagement positions at a nonprofit career exposition]]>

By May, senior Jason Whye could be restoring natural habitats or removing invasive plants as a community crew leader for a national conservation group that hires students to work in the national parks and forests.

“I want to do something because it makes a positive impact, not because it makes a lot of money,” said Whye, a history major whose longer-term goal is to teach high school history.

Whye was one of about 200 students and alumni who handed out résumés, honed their networking skills and exchanged business cards with more than 60 employers at Northeastern’s nuCAUSE (Creating Awareness and Understanding of Social Engagement) Careers Expo last Thursday. The expo, held in Cabot Cage, was sponsored by the University’s career services office, which has received best-in-the-nation accolades from The Princeton Review.

The expo was the first of four upcoming events on campus designed to help students learn about career opportunities in social change. A nonprofit networking event will be held in the Egan Research Center on March 24 from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m.

“We have launched an entire initiative to make students aware of the social engagement opportunities available in the nonprofit sector,” said Maria Stein, director of career services.

“More students are becoming interested in social engagement and more nonprofit employers are coming to campus,” she added, noting that Northeastern students are top candidates for positions with Teach For America and the Peace Corps. “Students can make a living while doing good,” Stein said.

Like Whye, third-year environmental studies and international affairs dual major Elena Huisman said she “would like to work toward something that changes the world.”

Huisman, who grew up in a family devoted to recycling and other conservation practices, attended the expo to pinpoint environmentally focused nonprofit organizations where she might like to work after graduation.

“It just made sense to carry what I’ve known my whole life into a career,” said Huisman, who is pursuing a co-op position in reforestation in Ecuador.

Employers view Northeastern students as top-of-the-line job candidates because their experiential learning opportunities imbue them with a greater sense of professionalism and can-do confidence.

“Northeastern students already have experience in the working environment because of co-op,” said Susan Rapoza-Houle, director of recruitment and orientation for Beacon Services. The Massachusetts-based education, assessment and consulting group serves children in need of behavioral support.

Rapoza-Houle said students who completed the applied behavior analysis program through the Bouvé College of Health Sciences at Northeastern are uniquely suited to become therapists for the organization. Educators who work with children and their families, she said, use many of the principles students learn in the program.

“Northeastern students are more focused than students who graduated from other schools,” she said.